Post navigation

There were Revlon rivers running down my face, the tube screamed to a stop and on I got. I’d been dumped. He didn’t want to be with me. Rinse, repeat and wash away the tears. Emotions hey – What a drip-dry bitch. Why can’t I harden up like the rest of you quinoa munching, cross-fitting the tears away teaspoons of concrete?

I’m emotional with a terabyte of WYSIWYG (What You see Is What You Get). Ok let’s put the computer geek in me away. When I’m happy, gosh darn I’m happy – my iPhone knows it, the people on the tram know it, Words with Friends knows it, everyone knows it. It’s there, all over my face. SMILE.

But when I’m sad or upset, unfortunately all the same goes. I find it pretty hard to hide emotions. I blubber into tears with a side of chin wobble and bloodshot eyes – the whole shebang. Would I like to NOT look like this? Of freaking course I would. Do you know how stupid it feels to cry in-front of colleagues or housemates? Trying to hold in tears is like trying to hold in that 8th tequila shot you shouldn’t have had before you got in that Luna Park taxi from Vom-city-hell. It just wants out.

At least I have the crying, moaning, weeping, sobbing, variety of emotional vomit. As opposed to the angry kind (the angry kind scares me). And I’m not talking customer service angry – I write a pencil-snapping-middle-finger-giving complaint letter like no other. No-one likes a cold burger. Don’t get me started on my complaint letters. Grilled Burgers needed the feedback OK.

The last time I cried in front of my parents was when my Grandmother died. I didn’t want to leave Perth that day and go back to Melbourne – the moment I had to get in the car the tears came with a shoulder shaking avalanche that was impossible to stop. I didn’t want to leave my parents. I hadn’t cried like that in front of them since I was a child. And at first I felt incredibly awkward and like a total dickhead. Then I realised these are my parents! and if I’m going to be that vulnerable and unleashing with emotion better to have it out with them than on that QANTAS flight scaring the entire of row of O, M and G.

I’ve always thought people who can’t have a good cry or put up an emotional wall are totally missing out. Go on, get on the emotional tear-train and let it all out. No-one’s drowned from a bucket of tears… yet.

Over the years my friends have found ways to deal with crying me and these coping mechanisms are still in play ten years on, first boyfriend – bless his ‘long black’ socks: Coffee, coffee, coffee. It works – somehow it stops the Lorenza tears. Then there’s Michelle – she has a sympathetic (cough) way of pointing out there’s no need to cry over anything – ever – no, really – ever. “Your hard-drive died? Buy a new one”. “You’re housemate is shit? Kick them out, tell them your sister is moving in”. This girl has a no tears, carved out of concrete solution for everything, well everything that a teary Lorenza can’t deal with on a Monday morning at least. And well the rest just suggest fruit, of the grape variety, you know the fermented type, that fixes everything from four minutes to four hours till why the fragile head did I fill that last glass.

So I’m a crier. So what? I’d prefer a crier any day to someone who calmly walks away, frothing at the mouth plotting to destroy me. I wear my heart on my sleeve, happiness in my eyes and tears streaming down my face and if I could have my emotional genetics or environment handed down to me again, I wouldn’t change a thing.